EDGE Will Reach 1Mbps in 2009

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=3202' target='_blank'>http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=3202</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Today Ericsson announced that it expects to make its 1Mbps EDGE Evolution network upgrades available by 2009. EDGE Evolution is a software upgrade for the existing EDGE data network hardware that runs on GSM networks. EDGE Evolution devices will be capable of data rates as much as 300 percent faster than current EDGE systems. This means that GSM device users will be able to enjoy connections of up to 1Mbps in speed - similar to those currently enjoyed by users on CDMA EV-DO and WCDMA 3G networks."</i><br /><br />I'd love to have 1 Mbps on my EDGE connection. Right now I use EDGE on my mobile device and have an EVDO Rev A card hooking up internet goodness to my home network. EDGE is fast now, but speeds greater than EVDO would be awesome. 2009 can't be that far away... I hope!

[Dyvim]

"Today Ericsson announced that it expects to make its 1Mbps EDGE Evolution network upgrades available by 2009 ...This means that GSM device users will be able to enjoy connections of up to 1Mbps in speed - similar to those currently enjoyed by users on CDMA EV-DO and WCDMA 3G networks."

Gee - in 2009 they'll have speeds similar to what EV-DO and WCDMA networks do today. Can't wait! Actually I guess I will have to wait ... 2 years or more. I wonder what EV-DO and WCDMA (or their successors) will be doing by then.

[Craig Horlacher]

I don't understand why they want to increase the speed of edge. UMTS and HSDPA seem to be a better way to go to me. Cingular is already rolling it out near where I live and it's amazing. I was getting over 1Mbps down and 115kbps up on my laptop using hsdpa and that was with 4 out of 5 bars. I think hsdpa is supposed to do up to 3.6Mbps down now and has a theoretical maximum of 14Mbps down. Why bother upgrading to something to a max of 1Mbps?

I also have to wonder if current devices that use edge can handle the higher speed. My guess is that newer mobile device hardware would be required anyway so why not just go with hsdpa?

One reason could be the edge upgrade is only software on the provider end but if they can't get it done until 2009 anyway, it just seems to me like it wouldn't be worth it. By then hsdpa and evdo rev b should be pretty much everywhere I hope.

Does anyway agree? Can anyone fill in the gaps for me? I'm probably missing something.

[kash]

the reason why is because edge has such a nice user base alot of phones and computers,pda's have edge already in them umts requires new hardware. so this will be well warned.

[inteller]

if they build a simple software upgrade for carriers to apply this will be creat, otherwise how many EDGE only phones do you think will be on the market in 2009? I hope 0.

If this was coming out THIS year it would be making waves. 2009 is too little too late.

[cbf]

This would seem to be a continued evolution of the EDGE protocoal, which itself is an evolution of GSM/GPRS. However, it's almost certain that no existing terminal device will support this protocol. As others have said -- who will want to buy a new EDGE handset in 2009?

Seems like this upgrade is only useful as a continued stopgap for carriers that are unable or unwilling to implement W-CDMA/UMTS for whatever reason. Certainly no North American carrier is likely to go for this, since by then even T-Mobile will have gone to true 3G.

I also suspect it's far less sprectally efficient than UMTS or W-CDMA. Maybe they don't want to pay Qualcom's licensing fees.

[virain]

The way I see it is that 3G networks are getting more and more devided in spectrum by country, location, even carrier (see US T-Mobile/AT&amp;T). As VOIP, such as Skype, becoming more and more standard way of voice communications, and it requires higher bandwinth, than current GPRS/EDGE can provide. This new high speed EDGE will provide easy international roaming on GSM networks, without a need to have device with numerous spectrums, for Europe, for USA, for South America, for Russia, for Asia, and so on... So what you wil need is quad-band EDGE, and your country 3G spectrum on your device. Hopefully, Data plans and roaming will be cheaper by then.

[Cybrid]

Based on this, CNet's quick guide to 3G networks (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11288_7-5664933-5.html). It seems that GSM and CDMA based tech are in for a real fight.

CDMA while technically superior has lower worldwide adoption and GSM has mass adoption but higher infrastructure costs for lesser gain. UMTS tops out at 2.0Mbps with EV-DO rev 0 at 2.4Mbps. In case you were wondering, the reason GSM>GPRS>EDGE>UMTS is rolling out slower compared to CDMA>1xRTT>EV-DO is that the GSM based technologies are hardware cell tower upgrades and more expensive. The CDMA to EV-DO upgrade path was software the whole time. So, while there are places waiting for their UMTS, I've been enjoying the equivalent high speeds for over a year now.

HSDPA and HSUPA are the next generation after UMTS and EVDO will undergo revisions A,B AND C. Mauricio Freitas (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/1203) wrote about the expected theoretical bandwidth of the EVDO revisions;
CDMA EVDO Rev 0: 2.4Mbps/155Kbps
CDMA EVDO Rev A: 3.1Mbps/1.8Mbps
CDMA EVDO Rev B: 73.5Mbps/27Mbps
CDMA EVDO Rev C: 129Mbps/75.6Mbps
High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a 3G mobile telephony protocol in the HSPA family with up-link speeds up to 5.76 Mbit/s. (http://www.hsupa.com/)

The GSM horse has run as far and as fast as it will go.

[Silver5]

One big benefit to staying with Edge is battery life. My current device's battery life is barely half using 3G as it is when I limit it to Edge networks.

I am pretty happy with the speeds I get with Edge so that small upgrade will be nice. However, devices will surely be much more powerful so having the 3g radios will be nice when I want the extra speed will be nice but I would be happy the rest of the time on Edge with great battery life!

[WorksForTurkeys]

Based on this, CNet's quick guide to 3G networks (http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-11288_7-5664933-5.html). It seems that GSM and CDMA based tech are in for a real fight.

CDMA while technically superior has lower worldwide adoption and GSM has mass adoption but higher infrastructure costs for lesser gain. UMTS tops out at 2.0Mbps with EV-DO rev 0 at 2.4Mbps. In case you were wondering, the reason GSM>GPRS>EDGE>UMTS is rolling out slower compared to CDMA>1xRTT>EV-DO is that the GSM based technologies are hardware cell tower upgrades and more expensive. The CDMA to EV-DO upgrade path was software the whole time. So, while there are places waiting for their UMTS, I've been enjoying the equivalent high speeds for over a year now.

HSDPA and HSUPA are the next generation after UMTS and EVDO will undergo revisions A,B AND C. Mauricio Freitas (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/1203) wrote about the expected theoretical bandwidth of the EVDO revisions;
CDMA EVDO Rev 0: 2.4Mbps/155Kbps
CDMA EVDO Rev A: 3.1Mbps/1.8Mbps
CDMA EVDO Rev B: 73.5Mbps/27Mbps
CDMA EVDO Rev C: 129Mbps/75.6Mbps
High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a 3G mobile telephony protocol in the HSPA family with up-link speeds up to 5.76 Mbit/s. (http://www.hsupa.com/)

The GSM horse has run as far and as fast as it will go.

Today T-Mobile bills me for DSL-rate EDGE but only provides 2400 baud (and that's on a good day, with a strong breeze), but in 2009 with improvements T-Mobile will charge me for 1Mbps EDGE but only provide 19.2kbs? All the while Verizon first-generation EVDO will still run rings around T-Mobile's EDGE, for the same price...

[Craig Horlacher]

CDMA while technically superior has lower worldwide adoption and GSM has mass adoption but higher infrastructure costs for lesser gain.

Can you explain how CDMA technology is better than GSM. I've been led to believe the opposite. Your numbers for cdma technology speeds are higher than I've ever heard and your number for hsdpa is slower than I've heard. Also, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, and HSUPA support concurrent voice and data but it's my understanding that evdo can't do this until rev b. I also have heard a number of complaints, even with new devices, about evdo usage and battery life.

[ricksfiona]

EDGE sucks. Increasing it to 1MB by 2009 is too little too late...

[Cybrid]

One big benefit to staying with Edge is battery life. My current device's battery life is barely half using 3G as it is when I limit it to Edge networks.

I am pretty happy with the speeds I get with Edge so that small upgrade will be nice. However, devices will surely be much more powerful so having the 3g radios will be nice when I want the extra speed will be nice but I would be happy the rest of the time on Edge with great battery life!Err...ummm...yeah....Have you considered the reason for your lower battery life is due to distance to tower? The further away the tower the higher the wattage needed to connect to it. See my post regarding slow UMTS/3G rollouts in GSM technologies. Well, atleast you have plenty of EDGE towers.... :wink:

[Cybrid]

CDMA while technically superior has lower worldwide adoption and GSM has mass adoption but higher infrastructure costs for lesser gain.

Can you explain how CDMA technology is better than GSM. I've been led to believe the opposite. Your numbers for cdma technology speeds are higher than I've ever heard and your number for hsdpa is slower than I've heard. Also, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, and HSUPA support concurrent voice and data but it's my understanding that evdo can't do this until rev b. I also have heard a number of complaints, even with new devices, about evdo usage and battery life. Well, What you've heard vs what I've googled is...different?
I've explained how CDMA>1xRTT>EVDO has been a software upgrade to towers. REV A unless I'm mistaken is also software (mostly?).

Every GSM>GPRS>EDGE>UMTS upgrade is hardware...A monkey climbs the towers and install a new radio. More work less benefit ergo inferior.
Feel free to Google and post some "real numbers" if you think I'm lying.

I've also heard EVDO rev A is data and voice concurrent. Where do you base EDGE and variants are concurrent? The bandwidth isn't there.

[ADBrown]

It seems like everybody's missing the potential of this. Unlike UMTS/HSDPA, this improved EDGE is a pure software upgrade, meaning that it requires no new hardware, and is therefore fairly cheap to implement. Most carriers are never going to pay to deploy HSDPA outside large metro areas, so this offers an alternative, allowing for relatively high-speed wireless to be deployed to areas that wouldn't be permitted it otherwise.

The GSM horse has run as far and as fast as it will go.

Eh, no. For starters, emphasis on the theoretical. At this point, no one outside Japan is seriously even thinking about 100 Mbit cellular wireless. Further, HSDPA has been tested up to 14 Mbits, whereas nothing CDMA has been tested past 3.

Realistically, CDMA doesn't have any significant technical advantages over GSM-based tech.

I've explained how CDMA>1xRTT>EVDO has been a software upgrade to towers. REV A unless I'm mistaken is also software (mostly?).

This is incorrect. EVDO emphatically requires new hardware on the base station. It is not a software upgrade.

[dstrauss]

ADBROWN is right. EDGE exists on most, if not all, of the Cingular/AT&amp;T footprint, but HSDPA is a definite "metro only" add-on. Even getting 500kbs on the new EDGE would be a great addition to my current service.

[inteller]

at the end of the day this is probably 1Mb of theoretical bandwidth with 400k of throughput on special Class 10 devices.

oh, and lets please not talk aobut UMTS, it was dead before it hit the door, HSDPA is what carriers are implementing, which far outstrips anything a CDMA based data technology can provide today.

[Craig Horlacher]

at the end of the day this is probably 1Mb of theoretical bandwidth with 400k of throughput on special Class 10 devices.

oh, and lets please not talk aobut UMTS, it was dead before it hit the door, HSDPA is what carriers are implementing, which far outstrips anything a CDMA based data technology can provide today.

I think UMTS is the underlying or primary protocol. HSDPA is an extention to umts for faster downloading. There is also a HSUPA which is an extention for faster upload speeds. So I think that if you're using hsdpa you're really using umts with high speed download extensions. I don't know of any hardware available (mobile devices) that support HSUPA for the high speed uploads.

[Cybrid]

It seems like everybody's missing the potential of this. Unlike UMTS/HSDPA, this improved EDGE is a pure software upgrade, meaning that it requires no new hardware, and is therefore fairly cheap to implement. Most carriers are never going to pay to deploy HSDPA outside large metro areas, so this offers an alternative, allowing for relatively high-speed wireless to be deployed to areas that wouldn't be permitted it otherwise. My point of software upgrade vs. hardware is still valid. It's what "this improved EDGE is a pure software upgrade, meaning that it requires no new hardware, and is therefore fairly cheap to implement. " means.


Eh, no. For starters, emphasis on the theoretical. At this point, no one outside Japan is seriously even thinking about 100 Mbit cellular wireless. Further, HSDPA has been tested up to 14 Mbits, whereas nothing CDMA has been tested past 3. True, but could you "theoretically" implement a 100Mbps cellular network based on GSM... (W-CDMA LTE?)
What about cell networks in say 2015? By 2020, I want my Star Trek:NG pin communicator... With unlimited LD calling to Mars. :wink:


Realistically, CDMA doesn't have any significant technical advantages over GSM-based tech. Realistically I wouldn't have the expertise to say, however, when one technology offers a significant possibility of longer term sustainability...


This is incorrect. EVDO emphatically requires new hardware on the base station. It is not a software upgrade.
I came across a PDF on the 'net from Lucent Technologies that outlined the Rev A upgrade and it read something like "requires (insert Model #) modem and software release". It seemed there was emphasis on the software release. That if the modem was already there...
It might have been the sales pitch...I stand corrected. :oops:

Also This report (http://www.currentanalysis.com/r/2006/s/files/CurrentAnalysis-CIR22531.pdf) says that after UMTS/HSDPA/HSPA...the GSM road map is to move to OFDM based tech...which EVDO is already?

[Cybrid]

Rev A is a software upgrade. (http://www.airvananet.com/technology/technology_348.htm)Low-cost Upgrade
EV-DO Rev A base station channel cards can be easily upgraded to Rev B, thereby protecting an operator’s Rev A hardware investment. In some cases, the entire upgrade to Rev B can be achieved without adding any new hardware. Rev C is not.

So is HSDPA. (http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/print/telecom_hsdpa_gsms_long) HSDPA can be implemented mostly as a software upgrade in UMTS networks, though some hardware might be required in other cases. “It impacts the channel card, base station and base station controller, so it depends on the UMTS platform the carrier has deployed,” Leonard said, adding that Lucent could upgrade its own UMTS equipment to HSDPA completely through software enhancements. The technology also requires HSDPA-enabled handsets. W-CDMA LTE is not.

Both will require new handsets.

Rev B is capable of 14.7Mbps? (http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2006/2912.htm)